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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Hell South - Final Preview - Palace of Minos

For those not up on their lore of Hell (or Dante's Inferno, as the case may be), Minos (former King of Crete, had a bull-headed stepson) is the judge of damned souls in Hell. His brothers show up sometimes as well, but Dante just uses Minos and I went that route as well. Minos is an interesting character - son of Zeus and Europa (remember - that's the one where Zeus masqueraded as a white bull to carry her away - bulls are a running theme for Minos), marries Pasiphae, the daughter of the titan Helios and an Oceanid named Perses. This means that Minos and Pasiphae are both, in Nod reckoning, titans. That was fun to play with.

Anyhow - Minos judges damned souls and decides which ring of Hell they should spend eternity being punished on. He also guards the narrow stairs that lead from Asphodel (ring #1 in Nod's Hell cosmology) to Erebus (ring #2), so PCs adventuring in Hell will probably have to go through Minos if they ever want to escape. Presented below is a map of his palace, a mini-dungeon in the game that is based very loosely on Minos' actual palace on Crete. Enjoy!

It was meant to be maze-like without really being a maze. The un-drawn dungeons below hold a labyrinth, of course, inhabited by Asterion, the original Minotaur - a rough customer to be sure. Oh - and the cover for NOD 12, which will be published a bit later today ...